


Unrequited

by Davechicken



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst without a happy ending, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2016-12-07
Packaged: 2018-09-07 00:41:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8776315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: Hux thinks he knows why Kylo is doing this.





	

General Hux is - well - _loathe_ to admit it, but losing the Knight - _Ren -_ no, that was all their names. Losing the one who had gone by Kylo, and who went by who knew what, now... (He changes sides as often as some people do bedsheets, after all.) Since Kylo Ren defected back to the disgusting Resistance, they’ve been... struggling.

That’s putting it incredibly mildly. Like comms back to his father.

‘I am progressing well.’   


The man hadn’t deserved the real detail. Not about the bloodied noses, or the excellent scores. Not about the tears he’d forced back into himself, and not about the glowing praise that made every other cadet _hate him_. 

Struggling. He clenches his jaw tighter, feeling where his molars don’t _quite_ meet in places, grown ragged inbetween punches and other blows. Running his tongue over the gravestone incisors from behind. 

Their numbers are vastly depleted. This - this training academy - it’s their last facility. Somehow the Resistance had uncovered them all (and oh, but wouldn’t it be the perfect irony if it was Ren who gave them over), and picked them to pieces, one at a time. He can’t _afford_ another loss, and that’s why they were evacuating as many cadets as possible. 

Were. Until all hell broke loose and they were attacked with overwhelming force. Where did they get this many ships? Did they always have them? Had Kylo used the Force to break politicians into promising ships?

(And what would the Jedi uncle of his say about that?)

Hux can’t imagine the man has renounced the Darkness. So he doesn’t know well enough what the Force really _is_ , but he’d heard enough over the years to come to his own conclusions. It is a weapon, and people had two different user guides or operating instructions to it. That is about the brunt. One side liked to snipe from the calm, and the other side liked to flick it to automatic and follow the recoil. 

Kylo Ren - Ben Organa-Solo - Shithead Son Of Shithead - whoever he is today... he’ll never be the cool, calm, collected sniper. He’ll never walk in the Light like they want him to, and there’s a perverse pleasure in knowing that, even now.

And in knowing that he only went home as a second choice. 

For years, he’d courted the General. After a very rocky start, they’d formulated a working relationship. Hux had found ways to operate around him, and Kylo had been so intent on wooing him that he’d fallen into step, mostly. 

Hux had been tempted. Of course he’d been tempted. He’d seen the man in less layers of clothing, and he wasn’t anything to be sniffed at. He’d seen him in action, and known he was in peak condition. He’d spoken more calmly with him, and learned of his keen wit and intellect. He’d been... well. Almost ideal. Parallel to his rank structure, so no conflict of interest. _Interested_ in him. All... all the things Hux probably needed, more than wanted. Someone close enough to be his equal, and...

Still. He’d said no. After that drunken kiss and grope, that terrified confession of Kylo Ren’s crush on him that he’d had to gently let down... 

He’d been busy. Busy working. It wasn’t that he’d been too afraid to open up, no. He’d had his duties to focus on, and he’d known how volatile and highly-strung Ren was. He’d _known_ it would be messy and awkward and likely end in tears. It had been the _logical_ thing to do, to turn him down.

Time after time. Kylo pleading to be allowed to love him. Offers of whatever he wanted - sex, no sex, sex with other people, just touching, no touching, anything anything anything - and the desperation had made Hux sick to his stomach.

No love affair was worth abasing yourself so thoroughly, or abandoning your own wants like that. It was a relationship doomed to fail, because Kylo would just have - hah - done anything asked of him out of fear of being rejected. So Hux... had rejected him anyway. Turned down the offers of kisses to his lips, and fingers in his hair. Turned away from being fucked into his bridge chair, or ridden by a man on his dick. Discarded the old, old tale (one day, you will find true love, and you will be happy) and turned back to his work.

Of course, as entirely expected, the Knight couldn’t stand to be around him after that. They were distant, and Hux missed the camaraderie. Kylo wasn’t obstructive, just... lethargic. He no longer cared, and Hux had wondered why the Leader didn’t recondition him on the spot. 

Once they became disillusioned, it was increasingly hard to make anyone work. Once their heart was no longer in it, they just... faded.

Hux had never thought he’d go so far as to _leave_ them all. That Hux’s denied affections were somehow so vital to Kylo’s existence that he’d throw away his whole life when refused them. He’d never thought he’d see another Knight beside him in the chamber, and wonder how long before the Leader realised it was his fault, for not putting out. 

Now the Leader is dead, and Hux is _it_. He’s the ranking officer, but not in any way he’d ever daydreamed about. It’s somewhat anti-climatic, all things considered. He’s in charge because he refused to fuck perhaps the most powerful Force-sensitive ever, and now that man ran off back to Mummy to cry. 

 _The horrible man wouldn’t let me love him forever and ever so I’m going to blow him up_.

Yeah. Even ‘the Resistance was a back up choice for when you said no’ doesn’t make him feel any better for knowing. This is a petty-minded lover’s tiff. 

That, or one last overture. The Order had been Hux’s excuse, every time. Duty. He’d never been able to criticise the man’s immaturity in emotional matters when turning him down, which was a sign of his _own_ emotional weakness. If he’d had the balls, he’d have said ‘this level of pursuit is making me uncomfortable, and you are also volatile, and I’m not sure I’m the Long Term Relationship Type’, but he’d said ‘The Order’ instead.

And now Kylo is ripping every last bit of the Order from his hands, blowing it all up in front of him. To free him? To punish him?

The offers to accept his surrender keep coming through, and he keeps ignoring them, even though it’s now bull-headed pride, not strategy. 

He can’t win this. He’s... he’s... out-manoeuvred. Out-manned. There’s no way the Order can continue as a valid organisation now, and he can hear the breaking in his staff’s voices. They look up to him, and expect him to lead.

How can he? He told Kylo Ren ‘no’, and he’s being punished with... death. 

Not really a choice at all, is it?

But Hux - oh - he _understands_. He understands this fury, and it’s enticing to him, even now. Sick as that is, he’s _happy_? Happy that their love affair should end on such an epic scale, without ever even really existing. It’s... weirdly flattering to know how many people are dying because he wouldn’t put out. 

And that should make him feel more disgusted with himself than he really does.

He understands the fury in Kylo, because it’s that deep fire he’d found so intriguing. The emotional instability had been teetering over a viciously deep longing. That power had been coming from _somewhere_ , and Hux was a moth drawn to that light. 

They could have been so much more. Another troop carrier explodes, and Hux can’t even feel it. He used to feel them all, but there’s too many, and he’s numb. They could have been lovers, truly lovers. A General and his Knight. Logic and passion. Forethought and fire. Strategy and Force. They could have been so many things, and those were just _out_ of the bedroom.

In? 

His eyes close to the explosions, and the bleating voices pleading with him to surrender as light plays through his lids directly to his retinas.

 _In_ the bedroom. A man so devoted to him that he’d promise him his body and heart. That he’d have let Hux fuck him without being allowed his own pleasure. Who would have lain on the bed as Hux took whore after whore next to him. Maybe even let himself be fucked by one right into another, while Kylo heard him praise the paid lovers as the best lay he’d ever had. Or maybe his cock would be up to scratch, and Hux could ride it until the ache in his belly went away at last. The ache that a few minutes in the ‘fresher in the morning couldn’t sate. 

Maybe he’d have found soft kisses, when the passion faded. A person devoted _to_ him. To his goals. To his ends. Working for his betterment, and kissing his hair at night. Touching fingers. Being... safe. Being... _safe_. 

Knowing what would happen, would he do it over? Hux would like to think he would, but he can never judge something like that for sure. 

“ _Hux. I know you’re in there. Surrender. Don’t let another soldier die on either side_.”   


Kylo’s voice, the first time he’s heard it since... since he left. It’s lighter than he remembered, or is that the lack of the vocoder in his mask? 

He doesn’t acknowledge the hail, his eyes still shut. He can’t see any more deaths, not today. Not even his own. 

“ _It’s over, Hux. It’s over_.”  


I’ll give you the galaxy, he’d promised. All of it. 

Well, right now, Kylo is giving him nothing. Worse, he’s _taking from him_. 

But if he’d stayed... if...

“Fire on the ship that’s broadcasting,” he says.   


If they can’t be together, they should... end together. 

“ _Hux... don’t do this. We can find a compromise.”_  


Hux does not want to compromise, not ever.

He only ever, ever wants to **win**.

**Author's Note:**

> If you'd like to see a happy ending, you can always read [this](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7945000).


End file.
